Archive for January, 2012

The Shmooze has been wondering what product would be featured in the new Superbowl ad in which Matthew Broderick is reprising his role as Ferris Bueller. Well, now that the full commercial is out online, it seems we could have guessed from Broderick’s teaser line, “How can I handle work on a day like today?”

The ad is for a car— not the sweet Ferrari 250 GT California we remember from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” but something more suited to a 49-year-old actor and father of three. Broderick is hocking the Honda CR-V. And like the Ferrari, it is red.

This post was first published as “Matronita: Religious Women, Feminist Artwork” on The Sisterhood blog at the Forward.

Helène Aylon’s ‘My Marriage Bed/My Clean Days’

“Matronita” — from the Latin matrona, a woman of high social and moral status — is a term appearing dozens of times in the Talmud to refer to a woman who engages in discussions with the rabbinic sages. The word, which can also mean a queen or a partner of a king, is the title given to the first major exhibition in Israel of feminist art by women from an observant Jewish background.

With the endless headlines out of Israel about women being excluded from the public sphere, this show could not be more timely. Matronita: Jewish Feminist Art opened January 27 at the Mishkan Le’Omanut/Museum of Art in Ein Harod.

Curated by Dvora Liss and David Sperber, Matronita engages familiar feminist subjects, like power and oppression, body image and menstruation. Interwoven in the artwork are themes unique to the Jewish experience: niddah and ritual immersion, hair covering, agunot, women’s study and Jewish legal issues surrounding infertility.

This post was first published as “Chamber Project in the Hall” on The Arty Semite blog at the Forward.

We all know the answer to the old question, “how do you get to Carnegie Hall?” is to “practice, practice, practice.” But the Israel Chamber Project has also gotten there by cultivating an appreciative New York audience in the four years since the ensemble’s inception.

“It’s the right time for a Carnegie Hall debut,” the group’s executive director, pianist Assaff Weisman, told The Arty Semite about the performance scheduled for February 1. “It feels in some way like an arrival… there is nothing quite like a Carnegie Hall debut to solidify your reputation.”

ICP, an ensemble of eight accomplished Israeli musicians in their 20s and 30s, has gained the interest of chamber music fans in Israel, Europe and the U.S. The group comes together several times annually for intensive tours and concerts at prestigious venues like Symphony Space and The Colburn School’s Zipper Hall in Los Angeles. Recently they also recorded their first CD, which is forthcoming.